Identifying computer assets in the physical world is often problematic in practice, where manually entered inventory information is often updated and subject to undocumented changes. While software management tools often provide such information with respect to network topology, there is often a missing link that fails to relate this information back to the actual physical locations of the assets. Hence, it can sometimes be difficult for operations staff to quickly locate a particular asset, especially if it has been moved during a prior facility reconfiguration.
Within many facilities, racks of identical and differing devices are often difficult to distinguish from each other. A server product might place a concealed barcode identifier on a recessed tag, which needs to be manually pulled to expose the code. A single LED placed on the front panel of a server could act as a unique identifier or (UID) indicator. However, such identifying features are typically manufacturer specific and not industry adopted standards. Thus, a rack containing heterogeneous equipment from multiple vendors would be unable to fully support such features.
A related need is to determine the actual location of such assets in an autonomous manner. Labor and time intensive manual assets are performed to determine the composition of center facilities, often a requirement for insurance or other purposes. Such information would enable timelier and faster facilities audits, automate change management procedures and improve the time to locate a particular asset, perhaps in response to a device failure or unintended shutdown.
While the prior methods provide solutions to the problem of locating or monitoring assets within the data center, deployment, configuration and cost issues have prevented their widespread adoption and in some cases productization.